The present disclosure relates generally to management systems and methods, and, more particularly, to systems and methods that manage the mapping between products and equipment.
In product supply, a supply chain supports material purchase, fabrication of materials into intermediate and finished products, and distribution of finished products to clients. Supply chain management has become important in meeting goals of reduced inventory, increased productivity, and enhanced competitiveness. Manufacturing and distribution facilities have limited resources and capacity, however, so not every client request may be met. For example, some requests may be promised but unfulfilled, some clients may experience inadequate supply, and other requests may be rejected. Consequently, effective capacity management in supply chain management, without excess capacity loss, has become important for product suppliers requiring control of manufacture or distribution.
In the supply chain, clients transmit delivery requests (demands) to a supplier. Delivery requests may include a request for a particular quantity of a device by a specific date. The supplier forecasts and plans its internal or external manufacturing schedule according to received delivery requests, and allocates capacity for product manufacture to satisfy each client. After receiving orders corresponding to delivery requests from clients, the supplier begins manufacture of the products.
Before delivering products to clients, products must be tested for quality assurance. During testing, each product (device) has a corresponding test program, comprising a specific equipment configuration requirement, and equipment with the specific configuration can be used to test the product. The configuration may be equipment components, such as CPU (Central Processing Unit), RAM (Random Access Memory) card, PIN count, and others. Effective management in device and equipment mapping is critical for product suppliers. Conventionally, there is no mechanism to evaluate the impact between the devices and equipment when the equipment configuration changes, and no mechanism to automatically and systematically provide suggestions regarding appropriate adjustment of equipment configuration to improve capacity utilization.